OTTER-HUNTIXG. 435 



finally succeeded in killing four fine cubs, weighing 

 on the average eleven pounds each. The farmers 

 of the neighbourhood who were up at the death 

 were quite overjoyed, and nothing would satisfy 

 them but the immediate cutting up of one of the 

 cubs ' a la reynard," and a distribution of the pads, 

 head, and body, amongst them. It is said that 

 these amphibious fish-merchants, when sufi'ering 

 hunger by reason of a scarcity of fish, will boldly 

 in the season carry away young lambs ; so that 

 the farmers, independently of their stream being 

 pilfered of fish, often sustain a more substantial 

 injury, and therefore are much gratified at the op- 

 portunity now afforded of in some degree thinning 

 the numbers of these voracious gluttons." 



The otter-hound is not a distinct kind of hound, 

 the strong rough-haired harrier answering the pur- 

 pose best, provided he will hunt a low scent, as the 

 game shows no small sagacity, as well as circum- 

 spection, in guarding against assault from man or 

 dog. In 1796, on the river Worse, near Bridge- 

 north, Shropshire, four otters were killed, one of 

 which stood three, another four hours, before the 

 hounds ; and in 1804 the otter-hounds of Mr. Cole- 

 man of Leominster, Herefordshire, killed an otter 

 in a mill-pond, which is said to have weighed 

 thirty-four pounds and a half; supposed to have 

 been eight years old, and to have consumed a ton 

 of fish or flesh annually, for the last five years. It 

 will be observed, in the list of hounds published 

 annually in the New Sporting Magazine, that there 



